The Parkersburg Urban Renewal Authority will consider an offer to purchase this lot at St. Marys Avenue and 19th Street when it meets Tuesday. Wal-Bon Inc. plans to build a McHappy’s Donuts on the site. (Photo by Evan Bevins)

PARKERSBURG — The 19th Street and St. Marys Avenue property where a building housing Runyon Lock Service and a tattoo parlor once stood could be the site of a new McHappy’s Donuts.

Parkersburg City Council, sitting as the Urban Renewal Authority, will consider an offer to purchase that lot Tuesday following a 7:30 p.m. council meeting whose agenda includes an ordinance authorizing the use of golf carts on streets with speed limits of 25 mph.

The URA agenda includes an application from Wal-Bon Inc. and co-owner Wayne Waldeck to purchase the 19th and St. Marys lot for $25,600.

Wal-Bon owns McHappy’s and Napoli’s. Waldeck said his plans for the site are to build a brand new McHappy’s location.

It will be “a new design that our architect has come up with. It’s a smaller store. It’ll fit on that corner very efficiently,” he said.

The Parkersburg Urban Renewal Authority will consider an offer to purchase this lot at St. Marys Avenue and 19th Street when it meets Tuesday. Wal-Bon Inc. plans to build a McHappy’s Donuts on the site. (Photo by Evan Bevins)

There is a McHappy’s location in south Parkersburg and another in Belpre, with construction about to begin for one in Vienna. If the offer is accepted by the URA, Waldeck said this would be the first Parkersburg store north of the Little Kanawha River.

“I would hope that we could get it open by fall, because our business really soars in the last quarter of the year,” he said. “It’ll be a real asset for that neighborhood.”

The URA voted in February 2023 to purchase the building that housed Runyon Lock and two adjacent residential structures, all of which were in dilapidated condition, for a combined $120,886.27. The structures were demolished last summer.

Also on the agenda are decisions on whether to demolish dilapidated structures at 1109 13th St. and 1331 Market St., an application to purchase a vacant URA lot at 903 E. 12th St. for $200 to expand a yard for a residential unit being built and an application to purchase 1627 Park Ave. for $1,000 to add a yard for a neighboring property.

The council agenda includes the first reading of an ordinance prohibiting the use of off-road vehicles like golf carts on streets with speed limits greater than 25 mph and state highways. That will allow their use on streets with 25-mph speed limits, something that’s prohibited under municipal code for all such vehicles except UTVs, City Attorney Blaine Myers said.

“They’re limited to use on residential-type streets where you have a low speed limit,” he said.

The ordinance is based primarily on one he wrote for the City of Williamstown while he was city attorney there.

Councilmember Chris Rexroad said he requested the legislation on behalf of constituents.

“I just looked at it as, most of the other cities around us have a similar ordinance, so why don’t we have one?” he said. “All I did was just get the ball rolling.”

Also on the agenda is the final reading of an ordinance making manufactured homes a permitted use in more zoning areas in the city, a resolution revising the Community Development Block Grant budget to allocate $2,500 toward the purchase of 500 smoke alarms for low-income households, a resolution slating next month’s council meetings for April 9 and 16 to comply with state auditor requirements for laying the municipal levy and Mayor Tom Joyce’s nominations of Leigh McCreery and Mysty Westfall to the Washington Avenue Architectural Review Board.

Council is expected to go into executive session to consider a resolution approving a settlement of a dispute between the city and a property owner, Window Outlet Inc., Myers said.

Evan Bevins can be reached at ebevins@newsandsentinel.com